Come Over

-3-

      By some small miracle, I was able to push that text message and everything it signified to the back of mind for the rest of the day. Maybe if I didn't think about it, it wouldn't be real. If I pretended like I never saw it, then I wouldn't have to deal with it. Or with him.

After the kids left for the buses to head home, I straightened my room and put everything away. I spent some time grading the afternoon classwork. I hung the shamrock drawings that we had done that morning in the hallway. I wrote tomorrow's vocabulary words on the white board and I measured and cut the pipe cleaners we'd be using to make the stems for our spring flowers during our early morning centers.

I wiped the tables down. I folded the flyers for the book fair. I even sharpened all the colored pencils in the art center. Anything to keep busy and keep my mind from wandering. When there was nothing left to do, and no more excuses for me to stall, I locked up the classroom and headed toward the parking lot.

I didn't make it to my car before it hit me. From all the way across the lot, I could see that stupid Blue Raiders bumper sticker, faded and peeling from years in the sun. That sticker would forever be a reminder of what once had been.

Normally, I wouldn't have given it a second thought. After all these years, it was like part of my car. Just like the Toyota logo on the front or the dent in the rear passenger door. Today, though, it was a vivid reminder of what was to come.

Climbing behind the wheel, I reversed out of the spot. As I drove across town and the streets I'd traveled since I was a kid, I let the memories take over.

Oh, at one time, what I wouldn't have given to see his name light up my phone. I'd lived for those little text messages. I lost tons of sleep waiting up on those late night phone calls.

He and I had been inseparable when we were kids having grown up next door to each other. We'd spent every moment that we could together when we were in high school, way before either of us even had our own phone. I practically lived at his house most of the time.

We were best friends. He was the first boy I held hands with. He was my first crush, my first kiss, my first love. I thought we'd be together forever, he and I.

When the time came for us to leave for college, I felt like I was going to die. He went to Middle Tennessee so that he could play football. I headed east to Athens. It was the first time we'd been apart for more than a few weeks. Right before I left, my mom gave me my first cell phone. That first year, that phone had kept us close.

Of course there had been holidays. We'd spent Christmas together. He'd given me his letterman's jacket, as clichéd as that was. That's when he'd put that stupid sticker on the back of the brand new white Maxima that my folks had given me. He said he wanted everyone to know that I was his biggest cheerleader.

Despite the distance between us, everything had been great. At least I'd thought things were great. Until that summer when I'd come home and he didn't...